4 ways of building momentum for your brand with Infor PLM for Fashion

Fashion companies often ride a wave – where recent success fuels current success which sparks future success. Being able to turn hit products into tomorrow’s durability relies on being able to repeat a specific set of practices to build momentum and achieve lasting competitive advantage.

The business practice that is now known as product lifecycle management (PLM) has long been a discipline of success in fashion businesses, whether it was formally or informally applied. In earlier times, many businesses would often apply the PLM functions intuitively – dealing with design, production, collections, sourcing and more – in an approach that was often unpredictable and potentially frantic.

In the same way that businesses need more than spreadsheets to manage complex finances now, fashion businesses have too many moving parts to rely on informal PLM to keep pace with competition.

The Infor PLM for Fashion solution will help you build momentum and longevity for your brand in 5 key ways:

#1 Remove the risk and hidden costs of spreadsheets

It is a risky notion to rely on spreadsheets for PLM. Whilst you can certainly store all the relevant data in an assortment of spreadsheets, at minimal costs there are hidden costs. There will be an inevitable loss of momentum – transferring product specifications to and from a spreadsheet reduces speed, as well as compromising consistency and accuracy.

Infor PLM for Fashion allow simultaneous support of designers, product engineers, brand managers, sourcing staff, and merchandisers. This means they can easily help designers develop styles more quickly and efficiently, with more consistent quality, and on time. This accellerates the process of converting creative concepts to commercial products.

# 2 Streamline the design process

PLM practices need to support the two branches of your product development operations – the creative, intuitive people who prefer to create designs and work in visual ways; as well as the methodical, analytical people who drive the manufacturing and logistics side of your business, and who prefer structured, well organized data.

A platform like Infor PLM for Fashion delivers an intuitive common ground for both kinds of approach. It will support the the creative design approach, whilst ensuring that realistic financial and operational constraints are applied and everything happens on time.

#3 Support Compliance and Sustainability

One of the biggest paradigm shifts in fashion is the focus on  sustainability, with many brands putting it front and centre of their identity. The vast complexities of achieving this are multi-dimensional –  especially when you rely on prime vendors who may subcontract to suppliers where your visibility into practice may be limited needs up-to-date PLM software, so when things go wrong in spite of your own due-diligence and best efforts, you can react and reassure your customers.

To be able to react to these pressures, let alone be a leader in compliance and sustainability, a modern PLM platform like Infor PLM for fashion will help you address:

Ethical sourcing

In addition to supporting your brand’s authentic goals of ethical sourcing – more and more jurisdictions globally have laws and regulations that prohibit the sale of goods that don’t achieve a range of standards related to animal and human rights. Consumers are continuously applying pressure, so these issues change continuously. If this data is stored in spreadsheets, in multiple silos, every regulatory change creates a new business crisis. With this plm software you will streamline the task of keeping ethical sourcing information ready for review.

Supply chain accountability

There is a dynamic and continously changing regulatory environment around the world that is increasingly requiring retailers to ensure they don’t deal in forced labour or human trafficking. Staying on top of this needs an advanced and adaptable PLM process.

# 4 Improve Competitiveness

Successfully blending the thinking of right-brained creatives, with left-brained technologists and result-minded merchandisers is a recipe for success for fashion retailers. This is easier said than done in the lightning-fast fashion world, whilst unifying your resources across regions and time-zones, at the same time as satisfying shorter faster product cycles.

Infor’s PLM system is a platform that helps everyone in the value chain think creatively, collaborate intuitively and act decisively to help satisfy consumer impulses rapidly and profitably.

The key benefits of Infor’s PLM software for the Fashion elements

When considering an advanced PLM platform you are looking for a solution which will support and integrate your entire development process. Infor PLM will give you:

Concurrent Processing

Speed up overall product design and production through simultaneous management and tracking of the progress of different phases of the collection. This will allow you to shorten the time from concept to consumer and stay more agile.

Natural workflow

A high degree of configurability that will mean every person gets to work the way that works best for them. This speeds overall workflow throughout the business and improves employee motivation.

Automation of repetitive tasks

Focus your people’s attention on your core business of designing, developing and delivering new and better products and adding value. Infor PLM for Fashion will handle the common tasks leaving your employees to focus on innovation and profitability. The platform will also make it easy to build and use libraries of colours, fabrics, trims and other supplier data.

Collaboration across teams

Unify your creative, technical and commercial teams using social collaboration to streamline the design, development and sourcing process.

Surviving and thriving in a rapidly changing, competitive and unpredictable environment requires well-developed PLM processes. Infor PLM will bring your contributors together on a common platform, allowing them to share information and collaborate effectively.  As an advanced, integrated product management system it will promote the likelihood of lasting success as product cycles get shorter and supply chains get longer.

If you would like to know more about Infor PLM for Fashion – get in touch.